"What a waste of police time": Listen to 999 call of man asking cops to frighten his sister

The ridiculous request has been revealed by West Midlands Police.

Another rang police claiming to have found a hair in his food at a fast food restaurant.

And a third caller sought help from emergency operators after forgetting her Facebook password.

The ridiculous requests have been revealed by West Midlands Police.

They are staging a "tweetathon" to highlight time-wasting 999 calls.

The force hopes the day-long social media initiative will reduce the number of inappropriate calls to its 999 system, which prevent operators from dealing with genuine emergencies.

As part of the campaign, the force tweeted links to recordings of previous calls.

Among today's calls were several from babies or children playing with mobile phones, and another which prompted police to tweet: "999 call just received from a male who wanted the police to come out to frighten his sister. What a waste of police time."

Chief Inspector Sally Holmes, from the Force Contact department at West Midlands Police, described some of the calls received by 999 operators as ridiculous.

She said: "We regularly receive calls on the 9s about lost property, people asking for directions and from people who have been denied entry to a nightclub.

"Its astonishing listening to them but they hide a serious truth. Each call often takes minutes to deal with as staff have to clarify the situation - it might not sound like much but, if someone is trying to get through to report a genuine life or death emergency, then a minute is a very long time to wait.